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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Snow in Tokyo!

Yesterday, I woke up to gray skies and what looked like rain.. which suddenly turned into a huge downpour of snow! The giant, fluffy snowflakes continued to swirl down from the sky all throughout the day. This was the first snow day in Tokyo of 2013. In Tokyo, snow only falls a handful of days a year, if at all, and usually around the coldest days of February. So imagine my surprise and delight when the first snow of the year actually started piling up! After watching it a while from the window, I was totally itching to get out there. Maybe those of you living in a location for which snowfall is usual in the winter would roll your eyes :) but having lived in the California Bay Area, where snow is pretty much nonexistent, and then Tokyo, where snow is very rare at best... I was giddy with excitement.

Yes! Snow!!!

The world outside had transformed into something unfamiliar, blanketed and dusted in white.

I was shocked at how much the snow had filled the streets, yet pedestrians were still struggling along their way armed with umbrellas (me included :) ... within minutes, my face, legs, and especially fingers were freezing already. The snowflakes flipped through the air and snaked their way inside my scarf, onto my cheek, landing on my gloves and making them soaked with cold. My breath came out in warm clouds before me as I crunched and slipped through the snow.

Bicycles caked with snow.

Cold but happy!

寒いけど嬉しい～！

I could just keep watching the millions of flakes drifting down and landing on the ground, joining the endless stretch of white, each particle fitting exactly into place... ah, such beauty!

今年の初雪に本当にびっくりした～！月曜日は雨が降ると思ってたけど、いきなりあんなにたくさん

雪が降ってきて。。わくわくして、早く外に行きたいー！って

思ったけど、実際外に出たら、足も手もものすごく凍えて、風も強くて。。

それでも、 夢みたいに綺麗なスノーフレークがずっと舞い降りてきて、それに囲まれていた。

素敵だった。いいなあ、雪。

This was not the first time I've seen snow. I've been skiing before with my family. I've seen some snowfall in Tokyo before in previous years. But for some reason, I felt that this time yesterday was one of the most beautiful. Perhaps also because this was the first time I tried to capture snowfall in action, and I never knew it could look this way, in both my memory and in the photos afterward. This morning on my way to work, I felt rather glum that the snow was already starting to melt away and turn gray near the roads, shoveled and stepped away by thousands of businesspeople shoes. I'm just hoping it will snow this much again before spring comes! I really can't stand cold, but for snow I will make exceptions. So let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! (Can it be Christmas again, please?)